North Wollongong

We’re the lot who still know where to park when the skydivers fly over — and yes, we clap like they’re opening the cricket. Back in the day North Wollongong was the kind of place you could time your weekend by three things: the Delano roastery hissing away, the Illawarra Brewing Company pouring tours from the taproom, and whoever got in early at Diggies Cafe snagging the best deck seat to stare at North Beach.

Mornings used to mean a walk along Puckeys Beach or up to the ocean pools on the rock-hopping guide Broadsheet loved to map out, then a pit stop at Delano to watch beans being roasted where the smell felt like local pride in liquid form. If you were feeling flash, the Novotel Wollongong Northbeach used to promise sea views and a hotel-lobby smugness that pairs well with a post-swim shower.

Petty local drama? Our scandal was more appetites than outrage: Time Out once putting North Wollongong Beach on a list of best skydiving spots made every weekend feel like a flying festival, and when The Boathouse North Wollongong offered $2 oysters our ordinarily polite queues turned into competitive shucking. Concrete Playground’s shout-out to the North Wollongong Hotel for State of Origin night guaranteed the beer garden filled faster than you could say “try for the second row.”

Who would hate it here: anyone who can’t cope with an impromptu community rescue — we still talk about the day the crowd rushed to Puckeys Beach after a baby humpback beached — or people who expect silence at 9am on a Saturday. Also, if you dislike seeing the Innovation Campus and Stuart Park from the apartment on Pleasant Avenue, this isn’t for you.

Who’d love it: families who’ve been bringing kids to MyTime at Wollongong TAFE on Thursdays, surfers and swimmers who treat the ocean pools like a ritual, coffee and beer folk who remember Delano and Illawarra Brewing Company tours, and anyone who thinks a lobster roll with a view (or a $2 oyster) is a civic duty. We’re coastal, compact and unpretentious — and we’ll wave to the skydivers, then get back to queues for Diggies’ deck.